Laboratory experiments are found to be extremely important in the field of planetary and exoplanetary science. In this proceeding, I cover three aspects of my envisioned next-generation laboratory research and the previous and current works of our group on achieving these visions. I will include three topics: 1) using material science techniques to study planetary materials, 2) collaborative laboratory research on planetary and exoplanetary haze analogs, and 3) building a robust laboratory database to better understand various atmospheric and surface processes on Titan and exoplanets. I will also elaborate on how such laboratory work could power next-generation space missions such as the Dragonfly mission to Titan and the James Webb Space Telescope.

In this contribution, I briefly review the long-term evolution of the solar wind (its mass-loss rate), including the evolution of observed properties that are intimately linked to the solar wind (rotation, magnetism and activity). I also briefly discuss implications of the evolution of the solar wind on the evolving Earth. I argue that studying exoplanetary systems could open up new avenues for progress to be made in our understanding of the evolution of the solar wind.

Solar observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter-Submillimeter Array (ALMA) became available to the community in late-2016. For the first time, high angular resolution (sub-arcsec) and high-time-resolution (1 s) observations of the Sun became possible at millimeter wavelengths, providing observations of the solar chromosphere that are uniquely complementary to those in O/IR and UV wavelengths. Here, an overview of current ALMA capabilities is provided, selected recent results of ALMA observations of the Sun are highlighted, and future capabilities are outlined.

The Solar Orbiter spacecraft, launched in February 2020, is equipped with both remote-sensing (RS) and in-situ (IS) instruments to record novel and unprecedented measurements of the solar atmosphere and the inner heliosphere. To take full advantage of these new datasets, we have developed tools and techniques to facilitate multi-instrument and multi-spacecraft studies. In particular the yet inaccessible low solar corona below 2 R⊙ can only be observed remotely and techniques must be used to retrieve coronal plasma properties in time and in 3-D space. These properties are useful to drive numerical models and test the different theories proposed to describe the fundamental processes of the solar atmosphere. In addition, the last decades of research have shown that the coupling between the solar corona and the heliosphere is most efficiently studied by combining RS with IS data. During one of the last Solar Orbiter remote sensing windows (March 2022), planned for the Solar Orbiter instruments, we ran complex observation campaigns to maximize the likelihood of linking IS data to their source region near the Sun, by directing some RS instruments to specific targets on the solar disk just days before data acquisition. We show how it is possible to achieve these results directed to improve our understanding of how heliospheric probes connect magnetically to the solar disk.

This paper gives an overview of the IAU B5 commission session on “Laboratory Astrophysics Activities” at the 2022 IAU General Assembly (GA). It provides a brief overview of the talks that were given in that session. The IAU 2022 GA B5 commission meeting was organised to present Laboratory Astrophysics activities in various parts of the world in an attempt to provide a first step towards a “Global Network of Laboratory Astrophysics Network of Activities and Data”. The program (10.5281/zenodo.7051332) and the presentations can be found in the ZENODO “cb5-labastro” community (https://zenodo.org/communities/cb5-labastro).

Regular observations of the solar magnetic field are available only for about the last five cycles. Thus, to understand the origin of the variation of the solar magnetic field, it is essential to reconstruct the magnetic field for the past cycles, utilizing the proxies of the magnetic field from other data sets. Long-term uniform observations for the past 100 yrs, as recorded at the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory (KoSO), in multi-wavelengths provide such an opportunity. Various automatic techniques have been developed to extract these features from KoSO data. We analyzed the properties of these extracted features to understand global solar magnetism in the past.

Molecular data obtained from laboratory studies are crucial for deriving chemical abundances in astrophysical environments. The Leiden Ice Database for Astrochemistry (LIDA; https://icedb.strw.leidenuniv.nl/) has supported these studies for years in the context of astrophysical ices. For the era of the James Webb Space Telescope - JWST, LIDA hosts more than 1100 infrared spectra of pure and mixed ices that mimic different astrophysical conditions and UV-vis optical constants of water ice. Additionally, LIDA has an online tool - SPECFY, that allows the creation of protostar synthetic spectra. In this paper, we create a synthetic spectrum including OCS ice to check the detection feasibility of this molecule with a 3σ significance using JWST. The calculations are made with the exposure time calculator (ETC). LIDA is a prime deliverable of Ice Age, an Early Release Science JWST program. The collected data and online tools are also accessible for other programs collecting ice data.

MeerTime is a five-year Large Survey Project to time pulsars with MeerKAT, the 64-dish South African precursor to the Square Kilometre Array. The science goals for the programme include timing millisecond pulsar (MSPs) to high precision ( ${<} 1 \unicode{x03BC} \mathrm{s}$ ) to study the Galactic MSP population and to contribute to global efforts to detect nanohertz gravitational waves with the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA). In order to plan for the remainder of the programme and to use the allocated time most efficiently, we have conducted an initial census with the MeerKAT ‘L-band’ receiver of 189 MSPs visible to MeerKAT and here present their dispersion measures, polarisation profiles, polarisation fractions, rotation measures, flux density measurements, spectral indices, and timing potential. As all of these observations are taken with the same instrument (which uses coherent dedispersion, interferometric polarisation calibration techniques, and a uniform flux scale), they present an excellent resource for population studies. We used wideband pulse portraits as timing standards for each MSP and demonstrated that the MeerTime Pulsar Timing Array (MPTA) can already contribute significantly to the IPTA as it currently achieves better than $1\,\unicode{x03BC}\mathrm{s}$ timing accuracy on 89 MSPs (observed with fortnightly cadence). By the conclusion of the initial five-year MeerTime programme in 2024 July, the MPTA will be extremely significant in global efforts to detect the gravitational wave background with a contribution to the detection statistic comparable to other long-standing timing programmes.

Bayesian inference is a powerful tool in gravitational-wave astronomy. It enables us to deduce the properties of merging compact-object binaries and to determine how these mergers are distributed as a population according to mass, spin, and redshift. As key results are increasingly derived using Bayesian inference, there is increasing scrutiny on Bayesian methods. In this review, we discuss the phenomenon of model misspecification, in which results obtained with Bayesian inference are misleading because of deficiencies in the assumed model(s). Such deficiencies can impede our inferences of the true parameters describing physical systems. They can also reduce our ability to distinguish the ‘best fitting’ model: it can be misleading to say that Model A is preferred over Model B if both models are manifestly poor descriptions of reality. Broadly speaking, there are two ways in which models fail. Firstly, models that fail to adequately describe the data (either the signal or the noise) have misspecified likelihoods. Secondly, population models—designed, for example, to describe the distribution of black hole masses—may fail to adequately describe the true population due to a misspecified prior. We recommend tests and checks that are useful for spotting misspecified models using examples inspired by gravitational-wave astronomy. We include companion python notebooks to illustrate essential concepts.

A plausible formation scenario for the Galactic globular clusters 47 Tucanae (47 Tuc) and Omega Centauri $(\omega$ Cen) is that they are tidally stripped remnants of dwarf galaxies, in which case they are likely to have retained a fraction of their dark matter cores. In this study, we have used the ultra-wide band receiver on the Parkes telescope (Murriyang) to place upper limits on the annihilation rate of exotic Light Dark Matter particles $(\chi)$ via the $\chi\chi\rightarrow e^+e^-$ channel using measurements of the recombination rate of positronium (Ps). This is an extension of a technique previously used to search for Ps in the Galactic Centre. However, by stacking of spectral data at multiple line frequencies, we have been able to improve sensitivity. Our measurements have resulted in $3-\sigma$ flux density (recombination rate) upper limits of 1.7 mJy $\left(1.4\times 10^{43}\, \mathrm{s}^{-1}\right)$ and 0.8 mJy $\left(1.1 \times 10^{43} \mathrm{s}^{-1}\right)$ for 47 Tuc and $\omega$ Cen, respectively. Within the Parkes beam at the cluster distances, which varies from 10–23 pc depending on the frequency of the recombination line, and for an assumed annihilation cross-section $\langle\sigma v\rangle = 3\times 10^{-29} \mathrm{cm}^3\, \mathrm{s}^{-1}$ , we calculate upper limits to the dark matter mass and rms dark matter density of ${\lesssim} 1.2-1.3\times 10^5 f_n^{-0.5}$ $\left(m_\chi/\mathrm{MeV\, c}^{-2}\right)$ $\mathrm{M}_{\odot}$ and ${\lesssim} 48-54 f_n^{-0.5}$ $\left(m_\chi/\mathrm{MeV\, c}^{-2}\right)$ $\mathrm{M}_{\odot} \mathrm{pc}^{-3}$ for the clusters, where $f_n=R_n/R_p$ is the ratio of Ps recombination transitions to annihilations, estimated to be ${\sim}0.01$ . The radio limits for $\omega$ Cen suggest that, for a fiducial dark/luminous mass ratio of ${\sim}0.05$ , any contribution from Light Dark Matter is small unless $\langle\sigma v\rangle < 7.9\times 10^{-28}\ \left(m_\chi/\mathrm{MeV\, c}^{-2}\right)^2 \mathrm{cm}^3 \mathrm{s}^{-1}$ . Owing to the compactness and proximity of the clusters, archival 511-keV measurements suggest even tighter limits than permitted by CMB anisotropies, $\langle\sigma v\rangle < 8.6\times 10^{-31}\ (m_\chi/\mathrm{MeV\, c}^{-2})^2 \mathrm{cm}^3 \mathrm{s}^{-1}$ . Due to the very low synchrotron radiation background, our recombination rate limits substantially improve on previous radio limits for the Milky Way.

Ultra-compact H ii (UC HII) regions are an important phase in the formation and early evolution of massive stars and a key component of the interstellar medium (ISM). The main objectives of this work are to study the young stellar population associated with the G45.07+0.13 and G45.12+0.13 UC HII regions, as well as the ISM in which they are embedded. We determined the distribution of the hydrogen column density (N( $\mathrm{H}_2$ )) and dust temperature ( $T_d$ ) in the molecular cloud using Modified blackbody fitting on Herschel images obtained in four bands: 160, 250, 350, and $500\,\unicode{x03BC}\mathrm{m}$ . We used near-, mid-, and far-infrared photometric data to identify and classify the young stellar objects (YSOs). Their main parameters were determined by the radiation transfer models. We also constructed a colour-magnitude diagram and K luminosity functions (KLFs) to compare the parameters of stellar objects with the results of the radiative transfer models. We found that N( $\mathrm{H}_2$ ) varies from ${\sim}3.0 \times 10^{23}$ to $5.5 \times 10^{23}\,\mathrm{cm}^{-2}$ within the G45.07+0.13 and G45.12+0.13 regions, respectively. The maximum $T_d$ value is 35 K in G45.12+0.13 and 42 K in G45.07+0.13. $T_d$ then drops significantly from the centre to the periphery, reaching about 18–20 K at distances of ${\sim}2.6$ and ${\sim}3.7\,\mathrm{pc}$ from InfraRed Astronomical Satellite (IRAS) 19110+1045 (G45.07+0.13) and IRAS 19111+1048 (G45.12+0.13), respectively. The gas plus dust mass value included in G45.12+0.13 is ${\sim}3.4 \times 10^5\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$ and ${\sim}1.7 \times 10^5\,\mathrm{M}_\odot$ in G45.07+0.13. The UC HII regions are connected through a cold ( $T_d = 19\,\mathrm{K}$ ) bridge. The radial surface density distribution of the identified 518 YSOs exhibits dense clusters in the vicinity of both IRAS sources. The parameters of YSOs in the IRAS clusters (124 objects) and 394 non-cluster objects surrounding them show some differences. About 75% of the YSOs belonging to the IRAS clusters have an evolutionary age greater than $10^6$ yr. Their slope $\alpha$ of the KLF agrees well with a Salpeter-type initial mass function (IMF) ( $\gamma = 1.35$ ) for a high mass range (O–F stars, $\beta \sim 2$ ) at 1 Myr. The non-cluster objects are uniformly distributed in the molecular cloud, 80% of which are located to the right of the 0.1 Myr isochrone. The slope $\alpha$ of the KLF of non-cluster objects is $0.55\,\pm\,0.09$ , corresponding better to a Salpeter-type IMF for low-mass objects (G–M stars, $\beta \sim 1$ ). Our results show that two dense stellar clusters are embedded in these two physically connected UC HII regions. The clusters include several high- and intermediate-mass zero-age main sequence stellar objects. Based on the small age spread of the stellar objects, we suggest that the clusters originate from a single triggering shock. The extended emission observed in both UC HII regions is likely due to the stellar clusters.

We report the results of a sensitive search for water maser emission in the Local Group Galaxy NGC 6822 with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array. The observations provide tentative single-epoch detections of four candidates, associated with two infrared-bright star formation regions (Hubble I/III and Hubble IV). The candidate maser detections are all offset from the velocity range where strong emission from Hi neutral gas is observed towards NGC 6822, with the closest offset by $\sim\!40\, \mathrm{kms}^{-1}$ . Our observations include the location of NL1K, a previous tentative water maser detection in NGC 6822. We do not detect any emission from this location with a sensitivity limit approximately a factor of 5 better than the original Sardina Radio Telescope observations.

We describe a new polarised imaging pipeline implemented in the fhd software package. The pipeline is based on the optimal mapmaking imaging approach and performs horizon-to-horizon image reconstruction in all polarisation modes. We discuss the formalism behind the pipeline’s polarised analysis, describing equivalent representations of the polarised beam response, or Jones matrix. We show that, for arrays where antennas have uniform polarisation alignments, defining a non-orthogonal instrumental polarisation basis enables accurate and efficient image reconstruction. Finally, we present a new calibration approach that leverages widefield effects to perform fully polarised calibration. This analysis pipeline underlies the analysis of Murchison Widefield Array data in Byrne et al. (2022, MNRAS, 510, 2011).

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) is a low-frequency aperture array capable of high-time and frequency resolution astronomy applications such as pulsar studies. The large field-of-view of the MWA (hundreds of square degrees) can also be exploited to attain fast survey speeds for all-sky pulsar search applications, but to maximise sensitivity requires forming thousands of tied-array beams from each voltage-capture observation. The necessity of using calibration solutions that are separated from the target observation both temporally and spatially makes pulsar observations vulnerable to uncorrected, frequency-dependent positional offsets due to the ionosphere. These offsets may be large enough to move the source away from the centre of the tied-array beam, incurring sensitivity drops of ${\sim}30{-}50\%$ in Phase II extended array configuration. We analyse these offsets in pulsar observations and develop a method for mitigating them, improving both the source position accuracy and the sensitivity. This analysis prompted the development of a multi-pixel beamforming functionality that can generate dozens of tied-array beams simultaneously, which runs a factor of ten times faster compared to the original single-pixel version. This enhancement makes it feasible to observe multiple pulsars within the vast field of view of the MWA and supports the ongoing large-scale pulsar survey efforts with the MWA. We explore the extent to which ionospheric offset correction will be necessary for the MWA Phase III and the low-frequency square kilometre array (SKA-low).

We study the radio power of the core and its relation to the optical properties of the host galaxy in samples of high-excitation (HERG) and low-excitation (LERG) Fanaroff–Riley type II (FRII) radio galaxies. The radio galaxy sample is divided into two groups of core/non-core FRII, based on the existence of strong, weak or lack of single radio core component. We show that FRII LERGs with radio emission of the core have significantly higher [O III] line luminosities compared to the non-core LERG FRIIs. There is no significant difference between the hosts of the core and non-core FRIIs of LERG type in galaxy sizes, concentration indices, star formation rates, 4000-Å break strengths, colours, black hole masses, and black hole to stellar masses. We show that the results are not biased by the stellar masses, redshifts, and angular sizes of the radio galaxies. We argue that the detection of higher [O III] luminosities in the core FRIIs may indicate the presence of higher amounts of gas, very close to the active galactic nuclei (AGN) nucleus in the core FRIIs compared to the non-core FRIIs or may result from the interaction of the radio jets with this gas. The core and non-core FRIIs of the HERG type show no significant differences perhaps due to our small sample size. The effect of relativistic beaming on the radio luminosities and the contribution of restating AGN activity have also been considered.

Massive stars are predominantly found in binaries and higher order multiples. While the period and eccentricity distributions of OB stars are now well established across different metallicity regimes, the determination of mass-ratios has been mostly limited to double-lined spectroscopic binaries. As a consequence, the mass-ratio distribution remains subject to significant uncertainties. Open questions include the shape and extent of the companion mass-function towards its low-mass end and the nature of undetected companions in single-lined spectroscopic binaries. In this contribution, we present the results of a large and systematic analysis of a sample of over 80 single-lined O-type spectroscopic binaries (SB1s) in the Milky Way and in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We report on the developed methodology, the constraints obtained on the nature of SB1 companions, the distribution of O star mass-ratios at LMC metallicity and the occurrence of quiescent OB+black hole binaries.

Most massive stars (up to 100%) are thought to be in binary systems. The multiplicity of massive stars seems to be intrinsically linked to their formation and evolution, and so Massive Young Stellar Objects are key in observing this early stage of star formation. We have surveyed hundreds of MYSOs across the Galaxy from the RMS catalogue, using UKIDSS and VVV point source data. Preliminary results show binary fractions of 44±3% for the UKIDSS sample and 32±3% for the VVV sample. In addition we use the K-band magnitudes as a proxy for the companion mass, and find a significant fraction of the detected companions have estimated mass ratios greater than 0.5, which suggests a deviation from the capture formation scenario.

The Gaia-ESO Survey (GES) is a large public spectroscopic survey that has collected spectra of about 100,000 stars. The survey provides not only the reduced spectra, but also the radial velocities, stellar parameters and surface abundances resulting from the analysis of the spectra. We present the work of the groups that analysed the spectra of the hottest stars in that Survey. The large temperature range that is covered (Teff = 7,000 to 50,000 K) requires the use of different analysis codes by the different groups. Eight groups each analysed part of the data, with significant overlap that allowed cross-checks. In total 17,693 spectra of 6,462 stars were analysed, most of them in 37 open star clusters. The homogenisation of all this information led to stellar parameters for 5,584 stars. Abundances for at least one of the elements He, C, N, O, Ne, Mg, Al, Si and Sc were determined for 292 stars. The GES hot star data, as well as the Survey data in general, will be of considerable use in future studies of stellar evolution and open clusters.